The scariest movie I have seen in the last 20 years

Rating: 9/10 (28 October 2005)

Fist of all: I think this film is a definite MUST SEE for everyone.
What scares the hell out of me, is the fact that the cloning story in this film is only a little bit off reality. Of course, clones that have the original's memories are pure fantasy, the same goes for the fast development of the clones that grow extremely fast.
But it is an extremely attractive business case to e.g. clone a 60 year old wealthy human being and raise the clone baby in a secret place. By the time, the original has become 80 and needs replacement organs, the clone would be adult and could serve as a "spare part" repository. The idea is disgusting and immoral, however, people strive for prolonged life, and I could imagine they would sell their soul to achieve this.
The really ugly part of the film is that the bio tech businessmen tell their customers, the clones are not "alive" meaning conscious. They just believe - how should they be able to verify it. So what to do when in 50 years, services like this will be a serious business? Is it acceptable to raise clones when they are not conscious? Is it acceptable to make them unconscious by destroying their brain in the fetal state? Is it OK to destroy it "half" so that the lower functions of the brain are still there? Ugly questions, questioning humanity itself. However, I am sure that - for big money - people will do this if states do not strictly control cloning.
My only relief is that such cloning business is very probable to fail, because the DNA of clones has shortened telomers (the ends of genes). This means that the clone is (from a molecular biology perspective) as old as the original (even when it looks like a child). Let's hope science does not solve this problem too fast, so that we are not faced with the above questions.
Yours, Patrik
PS: No, I'm neither conservative nor religious. Just scared. :-|